In Adah Obi’s council flat at the Pussy Mansions, problems are rife. Mould coats the walls of her room and those of her five children. The stairway is soaked with urine. A local kid steals the milk. Reliant on paraffin heaters – Coalite is far too expensive – she leaves her home at risk of fire.
In Buchi Emecheta’s semi-autobiographical debut novel, which was first published in 1972, she puts the welfare system of the day under harsh examination. But Emecheta isn’t interested in self-pity. On arrival at the Mansions, Adah is introduced to her new neighbours, and in them she finds an unlikely community. “Mrs O’Brien and the Princess smiled their welcome into the ditch-dwellers’ cult. She joined the ditch-dwellers’ association.” You can almost picture the club’s pin badges.
Emecheta was born in Lagos, Nigeria, in 1944 and moved to the UK with her husband in 1962. At the age of 22, while pregnant with her fifth child, she left her husband, who was violent. It was her experience as a single mother that formed the basis of her first published writing, initially in columns for the New Statesman and then in In the Ditch. In the following years she wrote more novels, as well as plays and children’s stories, and appeared on Granta’s first best young British novelists list in 1983. She died in London in 2017 and is rightly remembered as a pioneer among Black female novelists.
More than 50 years after its first publication, In the Ditch remains politically pertinent as well as entertaining, its new status as a Penguin Modern Classic more than apt. Its republication follows that of Second-Class Citizen, a prequel to this book, and The Joys of Motherhood, which is set in colonial Nigeria.
Through the story of one woman, In the Ditch intimately interrogates themes of racism, female independence and class snobbery. Adah is insistent on bettering herself – hers will not be labelled a “problem” family – and certainly has her own prejudices. The intricacies of life in the welfare system are complex, as the case of Mrs O’Brien shows: everyone knows her husband does not work because he earns more claiming benefits. Still, she insists, “he is a good man and would not dream of staying at home just for more money”. Who can judge?
Yet for all this weighty social politics, Emecheta writes with an appealingly jocular tone. “The glasses he had on gave him a highly intelligent look,” Adah thinks of the housing manager who finds her a new flat, “but he ruined the effect by keeping his mouth open most of the time.” One day she is visited by two women from the children’s department. “They went away feeling very helpful and charitable,” Emecheta writes, as though with a smirk.
Emecheta called this book a “documentary novel”. Its charm comes not only from its basis in fact, but also in its author’s skill for capturing the truest quirks of human character. No matter your social standing, Emecheta insists, you can be a marvellous observer of those around you.
Ellen Peirson-Hagger is the assistant culture editor at the New Statesman
In the Ditch by Buchi Emecheta is published by Penguin Modern Classics (£9.99). To support the Guardian and Observer order your copy at guardianbookshop.com. Delivery charges may apply
